


Climbing King's

by Telute



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-19
Updated: 2013-08-08
Packaged: 2017-12-15 12:36:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/849642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Telute/pseuds/Telute
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft's security detail loses him, only to find him halfway up the wall of King's Chapel.  In other words, Anthea is having a bad night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Cheating

Croquet, thought Anthea, was a game invented by sadists.  Two hours of knocking balls through hoops in the dark, with only the only light being that provided by candles swiped from Hall and held by research fellows.  The cheating had been less than subtle.

She’d not lost.  Losing would have been frowned upon by Mr Holmes (who’d come a respectable first, albeit not by as wide a margin as he’d have liked), but she’d been diplomatic enough to let the senior tutor take second place.  Any man who put so much effort into knocking his ball into a better position the minute the light moved away from him deserved to come second. 

She was contemplating the prospect of bed, when her blackberry rang.  Not the usual random pop song, but a sharp insistent shrill more akin to a fire alarm than a ring tone. 

‘Dancer.’

‘Harris.’  She sighed.  Bed was not likely to be a possibility for a while, if Harris had picked up a security matter that required her attention.  ‘What is it?’

‘Do you want to guess?’

‘Fuck.’  Not a security alert then.  She closed her eyes and counted to ten.  It wasn’t really fair to expect Harris’s boys to keep up with Mr Holmes if he choose to go off piste, but it would still be nice if they could manage it once in a while.  Especially since she’d tipped Harris the wink about tonight.  ‘Do you know where he is?’

‘Yes and I’ll say now that I’m not happy.  We have rules about this sort of thing.  No running off where the boys can’t catch you,  not if you want to remain in one piece.’

‘He’s aware of that.’

‘Too bloody right he is.’

‘Harris….’  She could feel her temper fraying.  What she wanted was to go to bed and get some sleep, preferably before the dawn chorus decided to wake her up.

‘He’s climbing Kings.  Which is bleeding impossible.  If he falls off…’

‘He won’t.  Have you let the porters know?’

Harris mumbles something inaudible, from which Anthea deduced that it was likely the porters who let Harris know.  The King’s lot had probably been briefed by the Peterhouse bunch as to the possibility of a midnight ramble, and Harris had been all too fussy about the security arrangements for the porters to resist rubbing his nose in it when they realised that Mr Holmes had evaded him.

‘I’ll ring him.  But he’s not likely to answer it while climbing.  Where are your guys?’

‘Scouting the perimeter of Kings and worrying about their future employment prospects.  You know they didn’t even see the bastard leave?  First I know about is when that smug git Gerald bangs on the door to let me know that King’s have reported an intruder and do I want to check that Mr Holmes is alright.’

‘How many rookies did you put on that team?’  Anthea dug out some flat shoes from her suitcase.

‘Two.  Wouldn’t normally, but sod it Dancer, it’s Cambridge.  Wasn’t expecting him to suddenly go rogue on us.’

‘Well it’s good practice for them if nothing else.’  Anthea grabbed her coat from the back of the door, checked the pocket for her keys and purse and headed outside.  ‘I’ll come and join you at King’s – don’t shot him before I get there ok?’

 

 

Peterhouse to King’s was a five minute walk.  Long enough for Anthea to ring Mr Holmes twice and be put through to voicemail twice.  The King’s porters had opened the front gate, which at least meant that she didn’t have to replicate Mr Holmes and climb over.

Inside Harris was pacing up and down the lawn, pausing every so often to harangue one of his team.  Most of the men were loitering a few metres away from him, giving the occasionally glance up at the chapel.  Anthea could guess the King’s porters had taken over the perimeter sweep, not that it was needed.  Mr Holmes would hardly be risking life and limb climbing the chapel if a handy assassin had been lurking to provide a more convenient challenge.

‘Where is he?’  She shouted before she drew near enough that Harris would be tempted to attack.

‘Up there.’  Harris waved in the general direction of the chapel.  ‘Travers has got the binoculars to keep an eye on him.  Travers!’

A trim young man in his twenties jogged over.  Anthea didn’t recognise him, and from the slightly nervous look he was giving her, she could guess he was one of the rookies.

‘Sir, Miss Dancer.’  He nodded at her, the over enthusiastic head bob of a cocker spaniel in disgrace.

‘Tell Dancer where Mr Holmes has got to.’ 

‘Oh.  Well he’s climbed over the window.  Here.’  Travers passed her the binoculars. Anthea followed where his finger was pointing until she could see the tall figure scrambling up the building.  ‘I think there’s a rest point when he gets to the next ledge.’  Continued Travers.  ‘We looked the route up online.’

‘He’s fine.’  She handed the binoculars back and Travers jogged off to join the rest of the men.  ‘You know it’s not the first time he’s done this.’

‘It’s the first time he’s done while we’re on high alert.’  Harris sunk his hands into his coat pockets and glared at the chapel.  ‘What’s he fucking thinking?’

There was nothing, Anthea decided, she could say to that. 


	2. Planning

Stupid, reckless endeavours were more in Sherlock’s character than his.  Climbing, thought Mycroft, as he grasped the thin iron bars and pulled up, taking care to place only his toes on the ironwork, had always been the exception.

This close to it was impossible to discern the picture the glass made.  Only flashes of the coloured glass could be seen beyond the bars and netting designed to protect it.  He reached up, and grasped the next set of bars, the window was roughly forty feet and he’d twenty or so to go before he reached the apex.  Harris would be spitting tacks, and Anthea…  He pushed up, stepping onto the next set of bars and letting his eyes flicker up the length of the building.   Anthea would be concerned. 

His phone hummed twice in quick succession.  Set to vibrate, it beat against the top of his thigh.   Ignorable, for now, almost certainly Anthea, possibly Sherlock, though his darling brother would be more likely to call later.  The problem with resurrecting yourself was that people asked questions, and Mycroft felt sure he could bet on Dr Watson as a man who’d not let Sherlock leave anything unanswered. 

There were less than ten feet to climb now.  When he’d first climbed this he’d been in college, he’d not known the route then, so each stage of the ascent had been a different puzzle to work thorough.  It hadn’t been hard, there was little that was hard given sufficient information, but it had been different.  A change from the usual round of lectures, classes and supervisions.  He’d been bored of it all, and climbing had been a trifle less boring.  Sherlock had found drugs while at university, but Mycroft had always been the practical one.

The iron was cold, but smooth, and it was easy to climb up and not think about anything beyond the ache of arms and legs that had spent too long behind desks.  He wasn't out of shape, an inability to move quickly is as much a liability in Mycroft’s line of business as an inability to think quickly, but he wasn't used to doing this.   Harris is not a reasonable man when it comes to security, and he takes a dim view of his charges doing things which he considers ‘damn foolish’.  Mycroft usually feels the pleasure isn’t worth the argument, but tonight … well he’d already run from London.

At the top of the window he paused.  The drainpipe on the left was the last stage before he could rest, and call Anthea.  Mycroft knew if he turned round he’d see her and Harris’s men somewhere below him.   He was tall enough that the pipe wasn’t a huge stretch, just enough to pull at his muscles, and there was the quick breath of tension as he swung himself from the window to the drainpipe.  His fingertips wedged behind it, he hauled himself the last few feet to the ledge.

 

Anthea dug her phone out her pocket the minute Travis waved to signal that Mycroft had reached the ledge.

‘Sir?’ 

‘Anthea.’

‘Are you coming down?’

‘Have I reached the top?’

The sarcasm was reassuringly familiar and Anthea smiled, earning herself a scowl from Harris. 

‘Tell the stupid git he’s to get back down here.’

‘Harris sends his love, sir.  Are you planning on coming back down soon?’

‘Once I’ve reached the top.  Harris might want to put his energy into discovering how one man managed to evade his highly trained team of operatives.’

‘I think he’d say that they weren’t expecting you to throw the various contractual clauses regarding personal conduct and unacceptable operational risk out of the window.’  Anthea waved a hand towards Harris, who shook his head and went to continue haranguing his men.

‘I’m a good climber.’       

‘Sir, your climbing prowess is not in doubt, however…’

‘If you’re going to quibble over insurance….’

‘It wasn’t your fault.’  Silence.  Anthea worried at her lip with her teeth for a second or two.  She could hear Mr Holmes’s light breathing on the other end of the line.  She sighed.  ‘Your brother is old enough to make his own decisions.’

‘Such is his prerogative.  However, the plan was mine and so is the fault.’

Anthea doubted that.  As plans went, faking your own death by appropriating the corpse of a dead lookalike and then hightailing it round the world to track down the remnants of a criminal network was not something she could imagine Mr Holmes devising.  It was too grandiose, and that was leaving aside the fact that nobody bar Sherlock Holmes himself had much faith in the man’s ability to remain undercover.  Especially since he wouldn’t be parted from his ridiculous coat, or persuaded to dye his hair.

‘At least he’s safe now.’  Silver linings, Anthea thought, that was what her mother had always taught her.  Though mother would probably have hoped she’d be using the advice in a different context.  ‘Easier to keep an eye on him in London.’

‘I agreed we’d suspend his surveillance.  He’ll have Dr Watson, and Lestrade should keep him occupied.’

Anthea stopped herself from querying the wisdom of that.  In her experience the amount of trouble Sherlock Holmes could get into was limited only by the man’s inability to stay permanently awake.

‘You think it’s a bad idea.’ 

Anthea sighed.  ‘Yes.’ 

Another silence, and then the phone clicked off.  Anthea shoved it back into her pocket and wondered if it was possible to get coffee at one o’clock in Cambridge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft's route up King's is based on the Night Climbers of Cambridge (both the 1930's and later 1960's editions) Web editions of these can be found here http://www.insectnation.org/projects/nightclimbing/


	3. Lying

Mycroft could see the top of the drain pipe.  The bowl which would give a decent hold, better than the fingertip fix he had on the drainpipe.  He continued upwards, hand over hand, until his fingers grasped it and he could swing to the right, wedging his left foot against a buttress, before hauling himself up and over the bowl, through the parapet and onto the roof.

He lay panting, trying to catch his breath enough to stand.  He was too old for this. 

His phone vibrated and hauling himself upright he fumbled it out of his pocket, sighed at the caller id and pressed receive.

‘Sherlock.’

‘Mycroft.’

Mycroft could hear the noise of traffic in the background, Sherlock was on the street, presumably making sure his conversation wasn’t overheard by inquisitive Doctors.

‘Is it done?’

There was a slight huff of breath and Mycroft could imagine the expression of ‘how stupid are you’ that Sherlock would unconsciously be adopting.  Of course it was done.

‘John, Lestarde, and Mrs Hudson know I’m alive and I’ve moved back into Baker Street.’

‘With John?’  Mycroft was almost sure that his manipulation would have achieved this, but Dr Watson was an occasional wild card.

‘Of course.  Someone has to protect me from minor officials of the British government.  Would it gratify you to know that no one even half-heartedly protested your innocence?’    

Mycroft leant back against the roof.  He tilted his head up to look at the sky, and the few stars that had made it through the light pollution and low cloud.  He should care more, he supposed, about the ease with which Sherlock has blackened what little remained of his good name.  But then he’d agreed it had he not?  The surest and best way to get Sherlock’s little clan to rally round and forgive him the disappearance and the guilt and the anguish.  Blame it all on the sinister elder brother.

‘Are you going to pretend you care?’  Sherlock sounded genuinely curious. 

Mycroft wondered if he might admit to caring a little.  Not about John, or even the estimable Mrs Hudson’s opinion.  But Lestrade…  He shook his head.  ‘No, Sherlock.  I can’t say that I do.’

‘So you’ll give me Moran.’

‘No.’

‘We had an agreement.’  Sherlock’s voice held the measured calm that came before a storm.

‘It wasn’t one I ever intended to keep.’

‘I’ll find him anyway.’

‘Not quickly enough.’ 

The sound of the traffic ebbs and flows as Sherlock paces.  Mycroft listened to the footsteps as they quickened and slowed as Sherlock worked through his options, cutting them down until he had what he felt was his best chance of persuading Mycroft.

‘I could disappear again.’

‘Dr Watson would find you – you can’t fake a death more than once and expect people to believe it.’

‘You mean you’d help him.’

‘But of course.  You can’t deal with Moran, Sherlock.  He’s too dangerous. ‘

‘How much does Lestrade know about you?’

Mycroft didn’t reply immediately, which he knows will tell Sherlock exactly how right his suspicions are.  Molly, supposed Mycroft, must have mentioned that they were friends – it was her idea after all. Part of Miss Hooper’s ‘keep everyone sane and happy’ project.  ‘He knows as much as he needs to.’

‘Nothing interesting then.  Perhaps he’d like to hear some new stories.’

‘Perhaps.  I doubt our friendship was ever going to survive your return, but I would be distressed were you to tell him anything that might result in outside parties being interested in him.’

‘No official secrets.  Still leaves me a long list of charming anecdotes.  Are you sure you wouldn’t rather give up Moran?’

‘No.’  Because he will kill you.  And because he’s working for someone and I need to know who.  And because if I give in now what does it matter – the damage is done, they will think badly or very badly of me and nothing will change that.

Sherlock hung up.  Mycroft listened to the tone for a moment before doing the same, shoving his phone deep into his pocket before raising his eyes to the final stretch.  Upwards, ever upwards.


End file.
